With no in-season testing, and minimal GP Friday
running, it’s diff icult for F1 rookies to get meaningful
in-car time. Tyre-maker Pirelli is offering one potential
solution, as KATE WALKER explains
TYRED OF THE FRIDAY
MORNING NO-SHOW
Formula One is a sport filled with
competing interests. The 2013
season has already demonstrated
the dichotomy that exists between
the team and driver championships,
thanks to the Red Bull Sepang drama,
but there is an equally strong split
between the sport and the show.
Pirelli have come under fire for
fulfilling their brief of spicing up the
racing by supplying compounds designed
to degrade rapidly, with some teams and
fans complaining that the 2013 rubber
leads to artificial racing.
But in a season that has seen the
first three races won by three different
drivers – all of them world champions –
it is a facile argument. The best drivers
will always rise to the top, whatever the
conditions. It is what separates the elite
from those who are simply very good at
what they do.
Becoming part of that elite group is
the challenge faced by all those drivers
yet to claim a title. But before a young
racer can set his eyes on the prize he
must first get the opportunity to strut
his stuff. And has been oft repeated
in recent years, the end of in-season
testing has had a detrimental effect on a
young driver’s prospects.
Speaking to the media in Bahrain,
Sauber team principal Monisha
Kaltenborn used the example of rookie
driver Esteban Gutierrez to highlight the
challenges of bringing on young talent in
the modern era.
For “drivers like him – rookie drivers
–
it’s quite a dilemma, because they
hardly have any opportunity to drive
the car,” Kaltenborn said. “Especially in
Esteban’s case, because he never got
any Friday sessions from us. At the same
time, when he comes in as a race driver
the expectations are so high, from the
team’s side and from his side as well,
and there are so few opportunities to
actually make points, so it’s a difficult
situation to handle.”
But in the past few weeks Pirelli
have proposed a possible solution to
the young driver drought – the Italian
tyre manufacturer has offered to supply
an extra set of more durable tyres to
those teams running a young or reserve
driver during the Friday morning practice
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